Monday, September 15, 2008

Steinway Street has lots of vacancy

On one side of Victoria's Secret, there's an empty storefront where a men's clothing shop used to be. A Japanese restaurant, now shuttered, is on the other side. For Rent signs are more common than street lights.

Despite a building boom across much of the city, Steinway St. - the normally bustling retail corridor in the heart of Astoria, Queens - has fallen on tough times.

Despite a long tradition as a powerhouse shopping district, Steinway St. is suffering a significant slowdown in retail leasing activity. Landlords, brokers and merchants blame the weak economy for store closings and curtailed expansion plans.

There are several vacancies on Broadway between Steinway and 31st St. as well - a Greek cafe closed several months ago, and it's still empty, a large 99 cent store closed, and another 99 cent store halved itself, and the other half is now empty.

No parking, filthy garbage and dog shit strewn sidewalks. Street punks from the 50th St and Broadway projects, deranged homeless. I've been to shopping areas in fucking Eastern Europe with more cleanliness and class.

When people are more penny wise and dollar foolish this is what you get. You have Kmart, Target, Walmart etc selling you stuff a few cents cheaper but you don't realize the car ride and the extra stuff you pick up that you don't need all adds up to you spending more. You should have gotten off your but and walked to your local store when you had a chance....because now we're all disappearing.

A mix of a few chain stores will bring enough clientele for better quality Steinway and hopefully some mom and pop stores. I am open to stores like Barnes and Noble, Ann Taylor, Eddie Bauer, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Charlotte Rose, Forever 21, etc. The presence of some of these will help traffic flow to smaller stores. The landlords will have to gie in eventually How much money can they afford to lose on the "potentiality" of getting a chain store. They will never make that money back!

Do you really expect greedy landlords give inand take less rent money?

And what apple cart did you just tumble off of ?

On Main Street in Flushing,I believe it was the Mehran Realty Group that opted for having the Hong Kong Market as a tenant instead of the big national brand Burlington Coat Factory for want of the Chinese paying them a few dollars more!

What's good for an owner's pocket is far more important than what's good for the community!

If El Mundo Discount pays more than K-Mart the pig's gonna go for them!

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